Design Narratives: Point of View

Design Narratives: Point of View

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Point of view is a core building block of any successful design, and any successful design career. It isn’t simply about what you believe; it’s about why you believe it. In the real world, it’s easy to rationalize almost any design project as “good” from various sets of design criteria, but the strongest designers take a proactive role in defining and articulating a clear point of view and carrying it through their work. If designers are going to be more than takers of orders, executors of others’ ideas, or agents in the service of industry, they must enter the world with their own ideas, firmly grounded, passionate, and with a personal stake.﻿

COURSE OBJECTIVES

This course concerns itself with developing several competencies around the notion of point of view: Clarity: Point of view helps filter out “trend noise” and identify real problems rather than reacting to the traditional, market-driven paradigm; Empathy and Curiosity: Understanding (and evaluating) others’ points of view-especially of those most alien, and even disagreeable; Consistency and Transparency: Point of view is a story, and it is a story that has to be told honestly and openly; if it can’t stand up to full scrutiny, it’s not a real point of view; Legacy: The final reality check on any point of view is how it will be viewed in the future. In addition, students will be encouraged to think “beyond objects,” since point of view, going forward, may turn out to be best expressed in ways that don’t involve physical design, but rather game mechanics, virtual goods, augmented reality, or instantiations yet imagined. ﻿

CLASS EXPERIENCE

This class will be a mixture of lectures, discussions, and field trips, and will require both written and physical prototyped assignments. The design provocation, “Why do we make the things we make?” will provide the bookends to the course-asked once at the beginning and again at the end-with an eye toward demonstrating that point of view can sharpen both intent and result, and that the student has learned its utility in informing the best design work.﻿

COURSE DELIVERABLES

Students in this course will come away with a set of tools to:

Understand the role of point of view as a building block of original design creation

Interested in learning more about a career in design, about effecting change in the world, and transforming your future? Email us or call us at the number below to arrange a visit or Skype call. We’d love to meet you!

INSTAGRAM FEED

FEATURED PROJECTS

Julia Lindpaintner’s thesis work was inspired by her own experience of serving on a grand jury in Manhattan during the summer of 2016. It profoundly changed her understanding of the judicial system, and in particular, the way she saw her role in it. “My mental model shifted,” Julia states. She further explains, “Instead of seeing the judicial system as an autonomous force over which I had no influence, I felt viscerally the way in which we, as citizens, are collectively responsible for the system and the outcomes it produces.”

As part of SVA Products of Design’s partnership with Veterans Affairs (and held through the Design Research and Integration class taught by IDEO’s Lawrence Abrahamson) , designers Jiani Lin, Alexia Cohen, Teng Yu, William Crum, and Antriksh Nangia used design to examine gender and the military—creating two design proposals aimed at changing the way people “see” women veterans.

NEWS & PRESS

Join us at this year's Open House and Information Session, taking place on Wednesday, November 14th, 2017—from 6-8:30pm! Attendees will be able to meet faculty, alumni, and current students, see projects, learn about the program, tour the studio, classroom spaces, and Visible Futures Lab, and ask questions about life at Products of Design. Delicious refreshments will be shared throughout the session.

We are extraordinarily proud that for the entire month of April, the two New York-based MoMA Design Stores are dedicating their windows and in-store displays to the collaboration with MFA Products of Design department! For the launch of 6 new products, an Opening Reception was held in midtown Manhattan last Thursday night. Check out photos below of the packed house, guests, and featured products designed by Products of Design students!